Monthly Archives: November 2005

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range murata’s next art book (his 3rd) is due out in february 2006, according to the recently updated publisher publisher page (which has a humorous ‘now roading’ message while the flash gets up to speed). The book will have 160 full color pages, B4 dimensions, which is 9.75 x 14 inches, or 250×353 mm. Most art books are A4, like Futurhythm regular version (LE is B4). Form Code, in addition being large, will cost a painful 9,500 yen. It will have a PVC cover, similar to futurerhythmLE, perhaps. Thanks to click-stick via Long Range Bullet.Thanks to all who wrote in about paper size!

The 2005 International Robot Exhibition is going on now, and one of the exhibitions is a Bandai/Namco-developed robotic Pac-Man game. Found via Akihabara News, which is unfortunately light on details. It appears as though pac-man really just runs round the maze, but may be connected to an actual version of the game played via the console shown. Regardless, it’s pretty neat, and the robot seems to be well constructed!

Check out GameSetWatch, a new games blog from my employers CMP, via sometime ic-poster Simoniker. It’s less niche-based than insert credit, though I am also contributing to it. Other posters include our old pal Frank Cifaldi, and a bunch of other people I know a lot less about, but are also supposed to be smart.

As a taste, check out a recent post on Cenix’s newly-planned game playing handheld. Cenix previously made MP3 players and voice recorders, and is located in Korea. The 1 gig unit comes with two games, still plays MP3s, and also boasts some 50,000 games via the company’s website upon release. More images on Aving!P.S. if you stop reading ic because of it, I will stab you. Read both! It’s the only solution.

Caution, some of the links in this post are not worksafe! According to Zepy and Temple Knights, Type-Moon‘s much awaited Fate/hollow ataraxia has sold 142,686 copies on its first month, hence breaking the record for best sales for an erotic game, previously held by its predecessor Fate/stay night, with 95,640 units sold in its first month. As Zepy tells us: “before that, Air took an entire year to sell 102,080 copies“. For the sake of comparison, Fate/hollow ataraxia has managed to outsell Sony’s highly praised Wanda To Kyouzou, released around the same period but only selling 129,492 units in its first month. Apparently the success of the game is deserved.

Nifty korean gadget site Aving has a subsection called Aving Girl (aka “gadget and girl”) which is like a real-life version of Idiot Toys’ running girl holding a thing gag. Anyway, the point is that now there are some images of not-very-attractive girls standing next to Wanna Be Wizard, on a big screen. This game came out for GP32, but I never got to play it – then it moved to Cellphones, and now might be coming to some sort of device which you can see on the left in this image. Here’s another one that has a picture of a girl that is dressed like a pirate. So.

Posted in Museum, Not-News | Comments Off on Not-news: Wanna Be Wizard girls

Rule of Rose is a new survival horror/adventure game from SCEJ, with quite a disturbing theme. You take the role of a young girl in england in the 1930s, who is lured to a specific house by a boy who only she can see. He gives her a book of disturbing fairly tales, which by degrees come to a sort of life in this house. The house is occupied by other young girls who simply want to be loved, but through their naive innocence create a rather horrid lord of the flies-like environment, from which the heroine wishes to escape.

Gameplay is similar to Demento/Haunting Ground, in that a dog helps you through, and there’s more emphasis on discovery and the ‘adventure’ aspect (ala Siren), in order to unravel the story. The game may not hit the states, given the rather disturbing, and sometimes psuedo-erotic content. Take a look at a promo movie here, though be aware that while there’s no nudity, it’s not necessarily something you’d want your boss/teacher/whatever to see you watching. Worth a look, it’s quite beautiful, in a horrible way. The game is due out January 19th, and there’s been very little info about the game released, oddly enough. You can preorder the game here, if you’re curious. Thanks to Hague and Iggy for the info.

The minibosses are releasing a new CD with 10 tracks, and much more variety than the last EP, which featured Castlevania III and Megaman II exclusively. There’s also a live CD that is relatively new. The CDs cost $12 and $11 shipped, respectively, and though the new CD isn’t out yet, if you preorder now, it’s quite possible that the order will ship on the 20th, making it more likely to arrive before christmas.

Famitsu reveals the details, along with the first screens. There will be an arranged mode, a practice mode (to fight bosses) and a gallery mode in this version, as well as the straight arcade mode, of course.

February 2006 will finally see the birth of the third episode of this shooting series, according to G-Para and Game Watch. That’s a new ‘high tension MAX system’, new characters for a total of nine, and ten brand new stages, but unfortunately there are some poor quality visuals, which make even the previous episode look great.
The link is actually about all upcoming Type-X games, so don’t miss the direct feed screens of Taisen Hot Gimmick 5, while you’re there.

<Brandon’s note: Also check out the Half-Life 2 cabinet, which sports some interesting controls, essentially a mouse and flight stick. The visuals actually look decent as well! I think we’re finally seeing the upgraded Type-X board Taito promised upon the system’s release.>

It was revealed at the latest TGS as a prototype PS/PS2 controller, and Sega Logistics wants to actually put it into production now. In order to make this the finest arcade-style stick for a home system ever, it has put up an online questionnaire to check the public’s opinion. They ask if you need Sanwa OBSF-30RG pushbuttons on it or if you’re going to pay 22,000 yen if it gets released, for instance. Now I ask, will they be selling a solid-enough, proper-height table with it?